The secondary sector

Economic activities in which people depend on the outputs of the primary sector and transform them into goods are called secondary activities, or secondary sector activities.

The secondary sector is the group of activities that process raw materials from the primary sector into products to sell or use. The key word this time is transform: the material already exists, and this sector changes its form. Remember Rajesh the carpenter in Chapter 13: turning wood into a chair is exactly what a secondary activity does.

The secondary sector includes the construction of buildings, roads and so on, and providing utilities like water, electricity and gas.

It also includes manufacturing in factories and production units, which turn raw material from the primary sector into another form that can be sold or used.

Examples: grinding grain from the fields into flour in mills (the packet of āṭā at home); extracting oil from groundnuts or mustard seed; processing tea leaves into the tea we buy. In the same way, wood from the forest becomes furniture and paper, cotton becomes clothes, and steel from iron ore becomes cars and trucks. Each example names both ends: where the material came from, and what it became.

How much of this goes on? The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers counted India's production in 2022:

• passenger vehicles like cars: 45 lakh;
• commercial vehicles like trucks: 10.3 lakh;
• three-wheelers: 8.6 lakh;
• two-wheelers: 2 crore.